incarnadine
by marapozsa
Summary: Balthier/Fran. I had traded a soft life, with this beautiful goddess and all my lovely sisters, to be thrust out into the cruel world of humes and their bright, clever things, and their dark clever things too.


_incarnadine_

marapozsa.

Balthier/Fran seems to be the only thing I can write lately. I suppose it was only a matter of time until I ended up writing of how they met. Fran's point of view. Some explicit material, like violence and not-extremely-detailed sex; if you think I should change the rating, just ask. Enjoy.

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_incarnadine [in-kahr-nuh-dahyn, -din, -deen] –adjective. blood-red; crimson._

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Gods spin worlds from the leylines traced on their palms.

Stars are born in explosions scented with the heavy musk of dark matter.

Rains fall on lush plains and fertilizes ancient alien blossoms.

I am born as the world is spun and the stars explode into being; rain collects in the pool of my thoughts, wisdom trickling in and caressing my parched throat. For a moment when I am brought into being, I am a child. That which men leave behind so easily seeps into my skin with the weariness of a traveler who has at last reached home: innocence seeking out an innocent.

When I am found, I weep, for I had thought to escape such weary trials as are found in childhood. I thought to never be a child, like a god, but my arrogance shaped only my form. I am born a woman with the simplicity of an infant. I am like a girl living inside a peach, with her shell broken too soon and too late, yellow flesh clinging to her dark form as she raises eyes the color of clay to a sky the color of blood and offers her womanhood like an apology to the gods.

I am born as the lotuses whisper of my existence, and the words become my armor. I know at once I will grow strong and proud. I will bear a bow and for every arrow I let fly, for every fiend whose soul I cast away, I will suffer a loss. Slowly, the innocence that came to me at the moment of my birth will be overwhelmed by the metallic smoke of the world of humes, and that which sank so easily into my dark skin will drip away. I was born in rain that saw kings die and empires crumble, yet for them I am but a humble presence, to which drops of moisture cling to. Ridden by so many small martyrs, so well-acquainted with the experience of dying and being reborn, I stretch soft hands out and meet with resistance.

The hands of a midwife, an herb-gatherer and fearer of the might of gods, leave imprints on my skin. I am scalded by the touch of my kind, crooning to me as my skin roasts beneath their fingertips. I become charred, like a beast in flames, but I do not burn. Sentences are tapped out in code upon my skin as I become darker than I was at birth. And still the water clings to my pores; still the rain falls, gently but in patterns I cannot count out; I try, numbers growing thick on my tongue.

Then I am silenced, and am reminded of my time dwelling in oblivion as my eyelids fall. The world's spinning becomes subdued. The sound I hear is that of warhammers, the thundering of white cattle when I alone may herd them.

Sweat gleams on my brow as I come to terms with my own heady existence. Others cluster around me, forming a ring of heads to encircle a vast expanse of clouds. I see the eyes of a glowing winged people, with slender fingers to reach through their screen of mist and pluck away at the threads that tie me to the earth. I grow weary as they work, but soon enough they are herded away, and I am left in peace to contemplate what I must do.

I know at once the touch of Her. The sound in my ears grows dim and is replaced with rustling of leaves; words form in my thoughts, the letters quivering as if it is difficult for them to form within the confines of my consciousness. The soft caress of my brow leaves dry skin beneath it. My pores yield their catch and I am left alone, with no whispering voices buried deep inside my skin. She draws out the water as if it were venom and I a dazzling cobra with skin like fangs. Like a snake I writhe beneath Her gentle hands. My soul is feverish even as my body grows cold.

Distantly I feel my sisters cloth me to shield me from the chill of winter, but in my heart of hearts I am naked and wrestling with my goddess. The desire to succumb to Her mothering affection battles with my need to know and command my own destiny. Before me, the way is clear. Like a warrior I do not accept defeat, even when the ground is slick with my blood and my eyes are bloodshot. My bones crumble and still the string of my bow does not falter, for though I am young, I know my own mind and I am determined to keep my own counsel. My goddess may be as loving as a sister, but I will not allow Her to lead me like a sheep.

In Her vibrant eyes my ugly face is turned back at me, and still the struggle continues.

At last, after many days, I am nothing but ghostflesh. My beautiful lady, whose womb sheltered me as I lay waiting to be born, smiles. Her eyelashes blossom into white lilies. Tendrils of nightshade caress the pulse in the curve of Her wrist. She who deigned to spar with me on the earth rises above me and stands on the peak of a mountain, a white body to mock my dark one. She is as a lightning rod but She draws not heaven's thunder, merely its light.

I am brought to my knees, scrabbling in the dirt, before Her terrible splendor. I can tell She is pleased. When She smiles Her teeth are that of a predator, a cat's sharp incisors fit forcibly into a human jaw. "You are a mere toddler, and I am the mother of the world," She cackles; the cadence to her words carries all the terror of an enemy that cannot be defeated. She is my queen and Her scepter is made from the leaves of ash trees newly waning in the harvest moon. From Her mountain She looks down on me with amusement, and then the vision fades.

I am free.

-

As the altar of a false gold grows heavy with golden plate and the young mother's womb grows fat with life, I dream I am the moon and I wax. No longer do I concern myself with freedom and fate; I am a celestial body, doomed to share pretty, meaningless nothings with sons and daughters born from equally meaningless affairs.

I do not give birth to my children. I merely wish for them and the possibilities feed on my vitality to take form. I do not love any of them, nor the hume and star husbands I took to conceive them. Their appearance breaks the monotony of my life. When they are present I wish them away; when they are absent, I rest my head on clasped hands and think of what delight their presence would bring me. Every month brings a new child, every child a new worry. I am a poor mother and my children grow without knowing me, except that which they glean by staring into the heavens. Moons do not tread the earth. They care little for the affectations of humes. I wax and I wane; my belly grows swollen and then shrinks. I am as eternal as a tree - more so, because only gods may cast me from my path.

Then I wake from the dream smelling of smoke and cold steel. I run shaking hands over my flesh, catching claws on the subtleties scrawled on my skin. I am bare of hair except for my head. The white mane caressing my skull runs through my fingers like streamwater.

Slowly I am caught up in the mysteries of my own body, which I had abandoned so I could journey on a war campaign for my freedom. But my war, my victory, was staged on another plane of existence; here I fight no wars, my limbs do not shake from the agony of defiance, and when my face meets its counterpart in the recesses of a still pool, I am entranced. My beauty takes me by surprise; if life is a war, then perhaps by seducing me, my reflection had already won.

Soon, however, I grow tired of what my body looked like. I turn my attention to what it could do. The first few steps I walk surprise me - how lithe are my limbs, how keen and taut my muscle when I draw my leg forward just so! My lips, the color of shells encrusted in white sand, curve upwards. Slowly I discover my body's potential: how I can draw back a bow just so, how an axe feels with a rough leather grip in my palm, and how I can clasp my hands around the hilt of a sword and heft the weight so skillfully. These things fascinate me and suddenly, I am a creature of the physical world, with all the grace and cunning such a creature should be blessed with. No water can cling to me now, and no goddess can command me. A moment of arrogance takes me, before I push away my hubris and clasp my bow with firm hands.

I had not won my freedom, I realize now. I had been given it.

My lullabies are the battle cries of fiends, instead of the crooning of a fair-haired, dark-skinned woman. My playtoys are the pelts of my prey, instead of small trinkets carved from dead wood and adorned with leaves. My playmates cast lustful hume eyes at me, instead of the kind open gaze of a fellow daughter of the Wood. I had traded a soft life, with this beautiful goddess and all my lovely sisters, to be thrust out into the cruel world of humes and their bright, clever things, and their dark clever things too.

The thought of what I leave behind does not pain me. When I close my eyes still I see the battle, where my holy mother reached out and tore my bones from their sockets. I ache still, but it is an ache I endure with pride. My soul is battered and mangled, healing slowly in the confines of my heart. There is no passage of time as I wait for its rejuvenation.

I am prepared to wait forever; and as I am prepared, so too am I perfectly willing to spend the time learning and killing. I hunt prey with my bare hands as well as any other weapon I can master. I learn to navigate the skies and to lie without giving myself away. I learn to read the hearts of men and the tracks of beasts. I learn to pleasure a man and a woman, and I learn to enjoy what pleasure is given to me. I learn all that I can stomach, ingesting the knowledge like a delicacy forbidden to all but kings. And it is all the sweeter for the danger.

Oceans pull in and out of ports, but I stay unchanging, a vessel for the soul inside me. While the spirit heals, the body and the mind still labor. My mind is like a library with no owner. The books on the shelves cry out to be read but stay mysteries, for there is no one to read them. Their beautiful golden bindings are polished, their creamy yellow pages kept from mildew and mold, but the tales they contain lie unspoken, the knowledge unclaimed.

I travel Ivalice. I grow acquainted with others like me, who fought for freedom and did not break beneath the goddess' piercing gaze. We speak of things humes cannot understand, and we find solace in each other's existence. We are all libraries, waiting for our owners to come back. We all house the same gaping emptiness, as if we would be humes if we did not shelter voids in our chests. We seem to breathe thought rather than air, and our eyes are the color of cherries. We wonder if they might taste as sweet, but value sight too much to inquire about it. Together we make sure we do not forget the intricacies of intimacy. Together we are seen to fade into trees like woodsmen, but for the most part we attempt to avoid forests, and revel in the glory of open plains and crowded hume towns.

But too soon, we part. I am expelled from their group, for though we are all strange I am the strangest of all, and cannot be suffered to bring the circle down. I mourn like the ocean, rocking on waves, losing myself in the insanity of pleasure as Bhujerban madhu stings my throat and a man's phallus clings to the inner walls of my woman's cleft. I feel deft fingers coaxing bruises out of my bones. I feel hume teeth far softer than viera jaws take nips at my stomach. I feel his knees making noises when they clash with mine, like swords. I am ridden like a ship but must look down to see my captain. I ask with gasps of pleasure to be commanded; and in this manner, I discover pleasure as a way of soothing old hurts. My soul heals a little faster when I forget them, even for only a short while.

My body protests the large quantities of thick, cloying brew I ingest. Seed spills inside my belly countless times, but I am barren, for my body will not allow me pregnancy. I ride waves like a ship afraid of drowning. I am small in the workings of the world; I forget my destiny time and again, and must be reminded often.

The image of my long struggle on my eyelids begins to fade. Now I see only red - the bright crimson of the sun through thin flesh.

I put my hands up to shield my eyes, and they burn.

-

It is in the city of pirates I meet him. My soul is nearly healed; my mind and my body are jubilant, eager to hand over the reins of leadership over my existence as soon as is possible. The sky is open and bleeding, rain falling hard, and I do not allow myself to think of the night I was born.

Rain whispers over my flesh now. My pores close on contact, becoming fortresses. My body is a battlefield and I am the general who cannot afford defeat. Water slides off me like oil, coats my hair like the gleam in bird feathers. I look as though I am on another plane of being - a visitor from another way of life, so alien the rain will not even deign to touch her. I cannot feel its sting; it is much the same for snow and fire. I am dull to many sensations, except war cries and bedroom vernacular. But I feel his drunken brush against my hip. I feel his warm breath in my ear, his feverish, tear-streaked cheek pressed to the flat of my shoulderblade. I feel his soul, and it is as tattered as mine once was, and I am flooded with the urge to caress and protect.

When Balthier first comes to me I am a beautiful stranger in the rain, and we are both lonely enough for each other. He is filled with the strength hume men gain from wine and falsehoods; I, with a steel mind shaped out of hardship. Beneath his pretense he is a boy still, young enough to be my child several times over, but when he takes me in his arms he is as a man. My hands become acquainted with his flat stomach, the dark shadow pooling in the hollow of his throat. I trace a claw over the inner crevasse of his thigh and he only shudders and parts his lips for my coming kiss. He does not hide his passion. He realizes there are far worse things than to be laid bare. He offers up his youth and virility to my critical gaze.

I, in turn, part my thighs. I trust him not to wound me. We are feverish like lovers who will die the next morning; indeed I feel as though that is the only way I could possibly end.

In his arms I am as a goddess. My womb is my altar; I flay myself open, scattering artifacts from my temple to make room for his seed. Clasping our hands together and razing each other's skin with jerky snaps of teeth, we ascend into paradise. The ocean of pleasure I have learned to ride so easily has changed its currents. Together we traverse the unknown waters with the curve of my breast as a prow, and the brown of his eyes as a mast. Our gasps provide wind to our fluttering purple sails. We grasp each other's forearms and steer its course without fear. We abandon caution for the sake of exploration. Our navigation charts are that of each other's bodies; slowly, and then quickly, he becomes acquainted with the islands of my breasts and I with the exotic lands indicated by the bucking of his hips.

We are explorers and builders of civilizations that night, and we fall asleep with hearts thudding in time, pounding out intricate patterns on our ribcages. In the morning we act as if we are lovers, soft and subdued. I allow him to twine his golden ring in my hair, breathe in the scent of old blood from my armor. He is fragile, like all humes, but still realizes that I am not conquered, only placated. I run my hands through his dusky hair and listen as he speaks of his ship. His eyes light up when I mention I have navigated and repaired airships before. He does everything to please me, though he could have simply dressed and left when he woke. He says I am beautiful and I see no lies, only wonder, in his eyes.

We do not offer names until the very last moment, when it is clear he has become attached to me, merely because I listen and observe. I see his youthful dreams as if they were my own, and do not lie when he asks me if I am willing to come with him. He stretches out a hand and I take it; for a moment we are the first in the world, naked and innocent, a man and a woman; and I feel again like a goddess, or a queen with her best warrior kneeling before her.

As the night before, he offers this opportunity to me because I am willing. He knows I am the companion he wants without a single doubt; it is something out of a hume-child's story, in a way. I, with my newly repaired spirit, bask in his warmth and am overtaken. Though I barely know this hume youth, he is the one who at last made me whole. I am content with the thought of simply being by his side, to share in his restlessness and soothe his unease. Ffamran is looking for a new name and an identity to go with it.

He wishes to be reborn.


End file.
